Tutorial 5: Anti-immigration sentiments and politics

Question 1

What is the process of the formation of ethnic minorities?

Answer 1

1. ethnic communities
   * Openness to settlement, granting of citizenship and acceptance of cultural diversity
   * = part of multicultural society + blend in/assimilate within few generations
2. ethnic minorities
   * Denial of reality of settlement, refusal of citizenship and rights to settlers, rejection of cultural diversity
   * Presence = undesirable + target of discrimination
   * Defined as?
   o Have been assigned a subordinate position in society by dominant groups on the basis of socially constructed markers of phenotype, culture or origins (Other definition)
   o Have some degree of collective consciousness based on a belief in a shared language, traditions, religion, history, and experiences (self-definition)

Question 2

Define ethnicity?

Answer 2

= belonging based on ideas of common origins, history, culture, experience and values -> based on linguistic and cultural practices

Question 3

Explain the origin of ethnicity

Answer 3

• explanations origin?
  1. primordial attachment
• Results from being born into particular religious community, speaking a particular language, or even a dialect of a language
• ethnic identities = unchanging characteristics of certain groups
• Not a choice

2. Situational ethnicity
   * = particular contexts may determine which of a person’s communal identities or loyalties = appropriate at a point in time
   * members of a certain group invoke ethnicity (shared descent, language, history and sometimes religion) as criterion for self-identification
   * Eg. Irish Americans on St Patrick’s Day
3. instrumental
   * Phenotypical and cultural characteristics = used to strengthen group solidarity or make claims for increased allocation of resources by the state

Question 4

Define race and racism?

Answer 4

• Race?
• = social construct produced by racism
• racism?
• = process whereby social groups categorize other groups as different or inferior, on the basis of phenotypical or cultural markers
• implies making predictions about people’s character, abilities or behavior on basis of socially constructed markers of difference

Question 5

What is nativism?

Answer 5

• = political policy of promoting or protecting the interests of native or indigenous inhabitants over those of immigrants,[1] including the support of immigration-restriction measures.[2]

Question 6

What are the 2 forms of ethnic threat?

Answer 6

1. Interest-based threat
   -> fear of losing material resources
2. Identity-based threat
   -> fear of losing cultural resources

Question 7

What are the results of the study about immigration and perceived ethinic threat?

Answer 7

• Eco and cultural explanations for perceived ethnic threat
• H1: accepted -> however, education = cultural variable not eco variable -> when accounting for income and labour market position => no large effect
• H2: accepted + cultural explanation model > economic model -> H2b (social trust and homosexuality): not supported
• Anti-democratic values/authoritarian values = originate from the weak cultural positions, not eco position
• actual eco and cultural threat
• All country level variables = not related to amount of perceived ethnic threat -> except deviation on social trust
• Effect of authoritarianism = stronger in countries w a greater percentage of low-educated immigrants and w greater relative percentage of low-educated immigrants => more immigration does not lead to a higher amount of perceived ethnic threat but to greater polarization

Question 8

What is racialization?

Answer 8

= public discouses which imply that socioeconomic or political problems are a ‘natural’ consequences of certain ascribed physical or cultural characteristics of the minority group
Eg. ascribing limited integration of low-skilled minorities to religion (Muslims)